This article is based on the Little Red Podcast episode “Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Inside the Solomons’ Big Switch.”
Taiwan’s relations with Solomon Islands started by chance, and now hang on chance. Within the next few weeks, the island nation will decide on whether to switch

One day (well, on 20 May of this year, to be precise) as Opposition Leader you’re launching a discussion document on your party’s international policies. “National’s positioning on international relations issues is anchored in our values,” you say.
Those values are rooted in our country

Reuters and the ABC report on the potential for Solomon Islands to switch its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. Solomon Islands’ top diplomat went to Taipei on Sunday for talks, while Taiwan is considering sending a delegation to Honiara to better understand the needs of the Pacific

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has copped flak for claiming that Australia regarded the Pacific countries as vuvale (a Fijian term for family). He was under fire again following the Pacific Island leaders meeting in Tuvalu last month, for emphasising Australia’s aid contributions to the region and

It was indeed an emotional moment when Pacific leaders and delegates were greeted by small children of Tuvalu – submerged in water surrounding a model of their sinking islands with their call to “Save Tuvalu, save the world”, upon their arrival to the 50th Pacific Islands Forum held this month

The government of Papua New Guinea has been reshuffled. Ian Ling-Stuckey was sworn in as Treasurer, replacing Sam Basil, who took the lead position at National Planning. It looks like the change is aimed at forcing the party of former PM Peter O’Neill out of government.The reshuffle came after PNG

Prime Minister Scott Morrison showed he was serious about the Pacific “step up” when he ensured that his first overseas visit was to the Solomon islands and the first foreign dignitary he invited to host was Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. The visit by Marape represented a

On 23 November this year, Bougainvilleans will vote in a referendum to decide whether they wish to stay part of Papua New Guinea or become an independent nation.
It is perhaps the high point of a 20-year peace process that in turn followed a gruelling, 10-year battle for independence waged between

On 15 July, Viran Molisa Trief was sworn in as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Vanuatu, becoming the first ethnic Ni-Vanuatu woman appointed to high judicial office. She follows in the footsteps of Justice Mary Sey, from the Gambia, who served as Vanuatu’s first female judge from 2012 to 2017.

The Prime Minister of tiny Tuvalu, a low-lying, reef-fringed island nation with only an 11,000 population, will hope to refocus attention on climate change and the threat of rising sea levels as leaders from the Pacific Islands Forum gather this week. But inevitably other issues will crowd the

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) starts this week, welcoming back Fiji’s Frank Bainimarama, who had boycotted the Forum for the past 12 years. Many topics are expected to be covered, from West Papua to a rising China. However, it is climate change that is should be at the centre of discussions and

China is changing the way Australia’s political elites think about aid. Chinese aid to the Pacific isn’t new, but in recent years, “China the aid donor” has become an unavoidable presence. In response, the Australian government is increasing the Pacific focus of its aid programs. It has also

The so-called Quad group of Indo-Pacific maritime democracies – Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – is a valuable grouping, although it is still underutilised in many ways. One of the most effective ways that these countries could work together to enhance maritime security in the

One of the criticisms of the Pacific Islands Forum over the years relates to the regional grouping’s limited ability to advance its agenda in the face of the interests of Australia and New Zealand. The power imbalance hasn’t always made for a cohesive regionalism.
Yet it’s worth noting a

If only a minister of the Morrison government would be as forthright in identifying climate change as a massive destabilising force in Australia’s region as the Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell has been.
In a private speech in Bowral in June, General Campbell is reported to have sounded

It wasn’t long ago that Hela Province, in Papua New Guinea’s southern highlands, wasn’t a province at all, and hardly attracted the attention of the outside world. Now in just a few short months, it has found itself very much in the spotlight.
The May election of James Marape as Prime

Separation anxiety
A new call to split trade negotiation from diplomacy in Australia has once again underlined how the rise of China has unsettled traditional frameworks for making policy about economic and security interests.
The divide between neo-liberal economic policy approaches

Despite the recent spotlight on Chinese aid and labels of China as an “emerging donor”, China has actually been delivering foreign aid since as far back as the 1950s. Indeed, China provided aid to North Korea for reconstruction purposes after the Korean War, along with Cambodia, Nepal and Egypt

PNG Prime Minister James Marape has concluded a week-long “Guest of Government” visit to Australia, including a stop at the Lowy Institute for a public address. Marape’s trip generated plenty of media interest on issues ranging from corruption, natural resource deals, relations with Australia

Last week, the Australian government hosted Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape on an official “Guest of Government” visit, just two months after Marape assumed the leadership of its nearest neighbour.
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison pulled out all of the stops, with

One evening every June for more than 20 years, a “Pacific Night” reception has featured as a mainstay of the diplomatic circuit in Washington DC. It is organised largely through the New Zealand embassy, and also sponsored by the Australian embassy and other Pacific island countries. This year,

For the first time since the Geneva Agreements of 1954, France has turned its eyes towards what is now termed the Indo-Pacific. The renewal of Paris’s interest in the region not only reflects a desire to tap on the wealth of rising Asia, but also Emmanuel Macron’s desire to restore France’s

In the first parliamentary sitting week following Australia’s recent election, a bill to amend the Migration Act was introduced and tabled in the House of Representatives. This follows the introduction of similar legislation in late 2018, which expired at the end of the previous parliament. With

When so many external “experts” have contributed reflections on the violence last week in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province, there is, I recognise, a point where another outsider does little more than fatigue and enrage local people. Nonetheless, I feel motivated to contribute to debate on the

Last week, China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said his country was willing to deepen military ties with the Pacific. Later that week, Hugh White set out why he believes China might set up a military base in the Pacific. He also said Australia should stop trying to push Beijing out of the region

What counts as aid? Whether it’s disaster relief, infrastructure, or a much longer term and less visible type of development assistance, in the end it all comes back to money.
But the many differing types of aid does create awkward discrepancies when seeking to rank the contributions by nations

“The United States wants Australia to embrace a power role in the Pacific”, says US ambassador to Australia, Arthur Culvahouse. His statement followed the weekend G20 summit, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison and President Donald Trump also agreed that France needs to play a

The last few months in Papua New Guinea’s politics have been described as political “chaos”, “turmoil”, “upheaval”, “crisis”. The Australian newspaper even went so far to describe PNG as a “potentially disintegrating neighbour.” For Papua New Guineans, it was a mere harkening

When it comes to “stepping-up” in the Pacific, Australians get the what, they get the who, and they get the why. But they still have a long way to go before they’re convinced that spending more on foreign aid is in the national interest.
Attitudes towards the Pacific revealed in the

Gender equality is fundamental to human development. Papua New Guinea is Australia’s closest neighbour and biggest recipient of Australia’s bilateral development aid globally ­– but significant and persistent inequalities remain when it comes to the status of women in society, sexual violence

PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape met Australia’s High Commissioner Bruce Davis in Port Moresby, and took the opportunity to introduce his new Foreign Minister. This came as concerns are rising on Manus Islands as acts of self-harm by refugees are increasing.In parallel, the government of Papua

A group of adolescent girls in Solomon Islands huddle around a piece of butcher’s paper. They are considering their answers to a question put to them as part of a research project: What makes it so hard for girls and young women in Solomon Islands to finish high school?
The spur for the research

Scott and Jenny Morrison stepped out into the humidity of Solomon Islands historic Henderson airport earlier this week to a legacy Pacific welcome, a mix of indigenous traditions and colonial pomp.
Being decked in finely wrought shell necklaces by young island maidens before inspecting the tiny if

Papua New Guinea has a new Prime Minister. International coverage from the ABC highlights James Marape’s first speech, where he declared he wants PNG to become “the richest black Christian nation” in the world. The Australian notes that Australian PM Scott Morrison was one of the

When the news broke that Peter O’Neill had finally resigned from PNG’s top job last Thursday, it spread instantaneously, lighting up mobile phone screens across the country.
It was social media, much more than PNG’s traditional news outlets, that had bored away relentlessly at O’Neill’s

In the battle for diplomatic recognition between China and Taiwan, China clearly has the upper hand. Taiwan maintains formal diplomatic recognition with only 17 countries, as China refuses to allow dual recognition. While an informal truce existed for much of the Ma Ying-jeou presidency in Taiwan (

The Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Narendra Modi has secured his second term as India’s Prime Minister with a landslide victory in the 2019 general elections. He spearheaded the long drawn out election campaign by labelling himself as India’s watchman, while the opposition criticised him for

The past two weeks have been an anxious wait and see in Papua New Guinea politics, and will continue to be so until such time as a vote of no confidence takes place, if at all.
On 6 May, prior to the PNG parliament’s last sitting, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill released a statement that his

Pacific leaders met in Suva last week for a rare meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. They used the summit to ramp up demands that developed nations do more to fight climate change and promise deeper cuts to emissions.Bal Kamal analyses the political situation in Papua New

Leaders of the Republic of Palau, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) are well used to seeing each other. They share a neighbourhood in the North Pacific and meet annually at the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit to discuss strategies on key issues

The outcome of 12 May provincial elections, the last under peace agreements, hardens the atmosphere for essential political discussion about New Caledonia’s future beyond those agreements. While independence groups increased their representation in the territory’s Congress by one seat

The Pacific has undergone a foreign policy renaissance of sorts, with politicians and policymakers falling over themselves to proclaim their commitment to the region and its vital importance to Australia. Leaders of both major parties have been increasingly speaking about the region, while starting

As Australia prepares for its parliamentary elections, Congress elections are under way across the Coral Sea in France’s New Caledonia, with potentially game-changing impact on governance and stability there. Independence parties look set to increase their representation, which will heighten

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has announced he will visit the Pacific next week and attend a special meeting at the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat, aimed at building momentum ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit in September.Catherine Graue explains why Papua New Guineans are

Two Port Moresby hotels have been the backdrop for the story of PNG politics this past weekend.
Members of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s government are perched in the Crown, looking over the CBD as they negotiate to stave off a determined parliamentary challenge.
Up and over Burns Peak –

In the three years Sir Mekere Morauta was Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, from 1999 to 2002, he pursued an ambitious reform agenda. Some parts of that legacy have fared well, like the privatisation of the country’s state bank. Others, like political party reform, have fallen over in the

I was surprised and disturbed The Interpreter published the recent article (Australian media: missing in action on Bougainville) which included claims of a “paucity of coverage by the ABC of one of the most important running stories in the Pacific”.
As Managing Editor Asia Pacific

Solomon Islands went to the polls on 3 April for their 10th general election since independence in 1978. The turnover of incumbent politicians in Solomon Islands elections is usually high, with around half of all sitting MPs losing their seats in each election. The 2014 general election, however,

The Pacific, when measured by aid inflows as a proportion of GDP, is the most aid-dependent region in the world. Geographic remoteness, exposure to frequent natural disasters and vulnerability to climate change are several of the causes that make the region vulnerable.
Because of this

The ABC Managing Editor Asia Pacific, Kellie Mayo, has subsequently disputed aspects of this article; read her response here.
Bougainville – the autonomous region of Papua New Guinea which suffered a brutal 10-year civil conflict in the 1990s – was due to have a referendum in June to